Thursday, May 31, 2012

Led Zeppelin guitar legend Jimmy Page isn’t very pleased with the London Olympics these days.

Page helped promote the London event at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, where he performed “Whole Lotta Love” next to a red double-decker bus with UK singer Leona Lewis.

The Telegraph reports the guitarist is very “upset” that he has not been invited to attend, let alone perform at, the opening ceremony of the London Games.

“Of course, I’m feeling rather hurt,” he tells Mandrake at the Diamond Jubilee Celebration of the Arts at the Royal Academy. “We put so much into Beijing, but weren’t helped by the Chinese giving us next-to-no practice time.”

Festival season is in full swing in Europe as rock fans gather to celebrate live music.

Metallica’s European Summer Vacation tour made a festival stop of its own at Rock In Rio in Lisbon, Portugal on May 25.

The tour sees the metal icons performing their 1991 self-titled (“Black”) album in its entirety for the first time, and the band offers it up with a twist: they perform the songs in reverse order so they can end the regular set with “Enter Sandman.”

Metallica are now sharing some footage from the Lisbon festival, including video of the pre-show meet and greet, tuning room and the performance of “Don’t Tread On Me” from the concert.

Metallica play the Rock Am Ring festival in Nurburgring, Germany this Saturday, and the band will stream the show live at OrionMusicAndMore.com.

Tune in on Saturday around 9PM local time - which is 3PM EST, 2PM CST and Noon PST.

Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin joined his old band – or what’s left of it – on stage at the O2 Arena in London on Thursday.

Stradlin teamed up with GNR to perform the songs "14 Years," "You Could Be Mine," "Dead Flowers," "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," "Nightrain," and "Paradise City."

Stradlin’s last appearance with a GNR lineup came in 2006.

Check out some photos of Izzy with the band in London, below...

Izzy and GNR’s original lineup - Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Steven Adler - along with later additions Matt Sorum and Dizzy Reed, were officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame last month as part of the Class Of 2012, which also included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beastie Boys, The Small Faces/The Faces, Donovan and Laura Nyro.

Stradlin, Axl and Dizzy passed on attending the Cleveland event, but Izzy did release a statement to acknowledge it, just days after Rose made headlines refusing the honor.

"I have waited up to this point to see what would become of the GN'R induction into Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame,” write Stradlin. “I would like to say THANK YOU and GRACIAS to Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for the acknowledgement of our works over the years as a band. BIG THANKS to all my bandmates who helped get us to where we are today. And, of course, THANK YOU to all of the people on this planet (including, but not limited to, the entire universe and beyond, etc., etc., etc.) who have supported Guns N’ Roses from day one. Adios, Amigos!"

Van Halen’s label rep at Warner Music in the band’s early years blames Valerie Bertinelli for the group’s 1985 split with singer David Lee Roth.

In a new interview with LA Weekly, former Warner Music artist development director Ted Cohen says the arrival of Bertinelli on the scene in 1980 began to drive a wedge between the members of the group, Yoko Ono–style.

The actress believed Eddie Van Halen should receive the lion's share of the credit for the band's triumphs, whereas Roth was essentially expendable, Cohen says. Cohen believed differently, however: "David was an integral part of the band's success. He was brilliant."

As a result of Bertinelli's interference, Cohen adds, Eddie began distancing himself from the band, staying in his hotel room and not spending as much off time with the others.

Cohen recalls the guitarist pouring his heart out to him at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, which had recently been purchased by Wayne Newton, shortly after Van Halen and Bertinelli wed in 1981. They spoke from 3 a.m. until dawn, watching workmen in a crane replacing the existing Aladdin sign with a neon one. "We kept hitting the minibar in the room and we got toasted," Cohen remembers, "and I just felt really bad because Eddie was so utterly depressed."

Had he erred in marrying Bertinelli? Cohen asked him. "I've made a terrible mistake," Van Halen affirmed with a glum look. (Why the couple stayed together for decades afterward remains a mystery to the record-company man.)

Meanwhile, after a tumultuous relationship reportedly tarnished by substance abuse and infidelity, Van Halen and Bertinelli divorced in 2005. Cohen was not surprised to see Roth reinstated with the band a year later. "If Valerie had never appeared on the scene," he opines, "David would probably have never been kicked out in the first place."

Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler is among the voices cast for a new animated film entitled “Epic.”

The flick, by Twentieth Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, is a 3D CG action-adventure comedy that reveals a hidden world unlike any other. From the creators of "Ice Age" and "Rio", "Epic" tells the story of an ongoing battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and the forces of evil. When a teenage girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world…and ours.

Billboard reports the Band Of Joy’s live set, filmed at Nashville's War Memorial Auditorium for the TV series "Live From The Artists Den," will be released on DVD and Blu Ray on July 10.

The DVD of "Robert Plant & the Band of Joy: Live from the Artists Den" includes performances of three Led Zeppelin classics - "Black Dog," "Houses of the Holy" and "Tangerine" - that were not part of the initial broadcast on public television stations.

Other songs included that did not make the initial cut are "In the Mood" from his solo disc "Principle of Moments," and the traditional "I Bid You Good Night." The DVD features bonus interview clips as well.

In the liner notes, Plant writes "Some years back I was propelled by chance, with little planning or expectation into an American way…with a lean and pull into a new direction…voices and harmony, restraint and explosion, tight and loose, great joy in great company… in a blizzard in Nashville."

Robert created Band of Joy with guitarist Buddy Miller and singer Patty Griffin after his success with Alison Krauss on "Raising Sand," his 2007 release that led to five Grammy wins.

Plant's "Band of Joy" album, the title is a reference to the group he formed with John Bonham prior to Led Zeppelin, peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in October 2010. It has sold 232,000 copies, according to Soundscan figures.

Robert Plant & the Band of Joy: Live from the Artists Den Release date: July 10, 2012

In addition to live appearances, Frehley is working on a new album and a second book, following up last year’s “No Regrets: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Memoir.”

“At this point I think it’s just going to be an extension of ‘No Regrets,’” Ace said a few months ago. “There’s so much I left out because of the deadline, but after talking with so many different people I’ve got so many stories that have eluded me over the years. And there just wasn’t enough room to put them into ‘No Regrets,’ and I was past the deadline as it was. But I think I’m going to come out with something in the effect of like a ‘No Regrets II.’”

Frehley’s "No Regrets: A Rock 'N' Roll Memoir" debuted at #10 on the New York Times "Hardcover Nonfiction" best sellers list upon its release last fall.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Def Leppard have announced that they’ll play an exclusive "YouTube Presents" club gig at House of Blues Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA on Wednesday, June 6 at 2:30PM (PST),

Fans will be admitted to this FREE show on a first-come, first-served basis.

The show itself will be followed by a Q&A of fan questions.

Both the performance and Q&A will be available on YouTube on Thursday, June 7th at 12pm PST (3PM EST) at youtube.com/presents

June will be busy for Leppard, as the UK rockers celebrate the summer of "Rock of Ages" by releasing newly-recorded versions of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Rock Of Ages" on June 4.

Leppard have also billed their summer tour as Rock Of Ages, after the band’s hit from their 1983 release, “Pyromania,” and the upcoming Broadway play-turned-movie starring Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Russell Brand and Julianne Hough.

The soundtrack to the upcoming film will be released June 5 — ten days before the movie hits theatres. "Rock Of Ages: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" includes Cruise's renditions of Leppard’s "Pour Some Sugar On Me"and Guns N’ Roses’ "Paradise City."

The Rock Of Ages tour, which features Leppard with Poison and Lita Ford, kicks off June 20 in Salt Lake City.

Black Sabbath’s plans for a full reunion album and tour this year were put on hold when guitarist Tony Iommi announced in January that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphocytes, a type of cell that forms part of the immune system.

Iommi’s illness and timely treatment – including chemotherapy, steroids and radiotherapy – scaled Sabbath’s reunion plans down to three dates: a May 19 show in their hometown of Birmingham, the Download Festival in June and Lollapalooza in August.

Drummer Bill Ward also decided to sit out the reunion, for now, while he seeks a better contractual situation while negotiating with an unknown band representative.

The previously scheduled Sabbath shows have been replaced with an “Ozzy Osbourne & Friends” series of concerts, which started recently.

The Ozzy fill-in show played the Bergen Calling festival in Bergen, Norway on Monday night, and the band was joined for a few Black Sabbath classics by Slash.

Metallica’s 2012 European Summer Vacation rolled into Oslo, Norway on May 23.

The tour sees the metal icons performing their 1991 self-titled (“Black”) album in its entirety for the first time, and the band offers it up with a twist: they perform the songs in reverse order so they can end the regular set with “Enter Sandman.”

Metallica are now sharing some footage from the Oslo event, including video of the pre-show meet and greet, a tuning room version of “No Remorse,” and the performance of "Through The Never" from the concert.

Metallica have also announced that this Saturday's performance at Rock Am Ring in Nurburgring, Germany will be streamed live at OrionMusicAndMore.com.

Tune in on Saturday around 9PM local time - which is 3PM EST, 2PM CST and Noon PST.